> CMG, MindSift and 1010 Digital Works claimed their “Active Listening” branded marketing service listened in on consumers’ conversations overheard by smart devices, in real time, to target advertising, according to the complaints.

It's so telling that the problem the FTC had with this scheme was that it didn't work the way they advertised it. The spying wasn't a problem. Even buying and using people's data from brokers is fine as long as you don't try to pass it off as original work. They did take issue with the fact that they told their customers that the targets had opted in to being spied on, but if they hadn't made the claim would it have even been a problem?

The one good thing that might come out of this is that they also said that clicking through a ToS agreement isn't nessesarily the same as opting in to something. What impact that might have on other companies who are happy to act like agreeing to a mandatory ToS means anything remains to be seen.